Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Equality and Inequality of Humanity as a Pre-Requisite to democratic governance and Individual Rights

A great article at the Claremont Review website traces the underpinnings of American representative government and argues that without a better understanding of this foundation, both here and abroad, democracy is bound to fail. Especially prescient are the author's contentions about the effects losing this foundation can have on minority rights in a democratic state.

My favorite portions of the article are:

The equality of mankind is best understood in light of a two-fold inequality. The first is the inequality of mankind and of the subhuman classes of living beings that comprise the order of nature. Dogs and horses, for example, are naturally subservient to human beings. But no human being is natural subservient to another human being. No human being has a right to rule another without the other's consent. The second is the inequality of man and God. As God's creatures, we owe unconditional obedience to His will. By that very fact however we do not owe such obedience to anyone else. Legitimate political authority the right of one human being to require obedience of another human being arises only from consent. The fundamental act of consent is, as the 1780 Massachusetts Bill of Rights states, "a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good." The "certain laws for the common good" have no other purpose but to preserve and protect the rights that each citizen possesses prior to government, rights with which he or she has been "endowed by their Creator." The rights that governments exist to secure are not the gift of government. They originate in God.Our difficulty in pursuing a rational foreign policy in the Middle East or anywhere else is compounded by the fact that we ourselves, as a nation, seem to be as confused as the Iraqis concerning the possibility of non-tyrannical majority rule. We continue to enjoy the practical benefits of political institutions founded upon the convictions of our Founding Fathers and Lincoln, but there is little belief in God-given natural rights, which are antecedent to government, and which define and limit the purpose of government. Virtually no one prominent today, in the academy, in law, or on government, subscribes to such beliefs. Indeed, the climate of opinion of our intellectual elites is one of violent hostility to any notion of a rational foundation for political morality. We, in short, engaged in telling others to accept the forms of our own political institutions, without any reference to the principles or convictions that give rise to those institutions.According to many of our political and intellectual elites, both liberal and conservative, the minority in a democracy enjoys only such rights as the majority chooses to bestow upon them. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution and similar bills in state Constitutions are regarded as gifts from the majority to the minority. But the American Constitution, and the state constitutions subordinate to it have, at one time or another, sanctioned both slavery and Jim Crow, by which the bills of rights applied to white Americans were denied to black Americans. But according to the elites, it is not undemocratic for the minority to lose. From this perspective, both slavery and Jim Crow were exercises of democratic majority rule. This is precisely the view of democracy by the Sunnis in Iraq, and is the reason they are fighting the United States.Unless we as a political community can by reasoned discourse re-establish in our own minds the authority of the constitutionalism of the Founding Fathers and of Lincoln, of government devoted to securing the God-given equal rights of every individual human being, we will remain ill equipped to bring the fruits of freedom to others. I will be taking a temporary hiatus from posting in order to concentrate on school, hunt for employment, and enjoy the upcoming Mardi Gras holiday. In addition I expect to be working and later posting on here a piece concerning race relations in Louisiana. It is an ambitious topic and I hope I'll be able to do it justice. Pray that God leads me in the right direction in my research, understanding and retelling of the issue.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Standing Up for Free speech and a Free Press

How is it that one of the most judgmental of professions, a profession that constantly reminds all in Western Society of their failings when it comes to upholding rights they deem sacred, is for the most part at this moment unable to summon enough courage to support that right most sacred to that profession's very existence?

For all who keep up with the news, it is clear that I am referring to the news media's kowtowing to the wishes of firebrand mullahs and violence wielding Islamist mobs concerning the publishing of a few, mostly innocuous, cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. While I doubt that their reason for doing this is much more than fear combined with overly sympathetic liberal tendencies, the majority of those publications unwilling to run the very cartoons at the heart of the protests which they report on, cite concerns about offending members of the Islamic faith.

This reason, by itself, is neither intelligent nor sincere. First, the sincerity of the Western media for the feelings of members of a religion are strongly discredited in their lack of concern, in the recent past, for members of the Christian faith. The New York Times, along with most other major news corporations, saw nothing wrong in running stories on the infamous "Piss Christ" and "The Holy Virgin Mary" covered in elephant dung. Unsurprisingly these stories ran with pictures of the offending works. The reasoning for including such images, it was stated, was to ensure that the public was aware of the works at the center of a controversy the same news agencies decided needed media coverage. Considering the magnitude of the recent reactions to the Mohammed cartoons it seems odd that the same argument should not be made with equal force for displaying the questionable cartoons, this time.

Secondly, some argue that unlike the Christian tradition, which allows for images of Christ, Mary and its venerated Saints, Islam forbids any images of Mohammed. This statement misconstrues both the facts surrounding the incidents in question, as well as the actual beliefs held by members of both faiths. Other than the one cartoon showing Mohammed wearing a turban made of a lit bomb, none of the "questionable" images denigrate the Prophet. They may not show the respect many Muslims would expect, but that is a far cry from humiliating him. Now consider the Piss Christ and Mary covered in Dung. The first was not only taken as denigrating Christ and Christianity, but that was also the artist's expressed aim. The intention of the second may be more ambiguous, in that dung is apparently a respectful symbol in some African cultures, but the response that should've been expected is certainly not. No sane person could have thought "you know what American Catholics, and perhaps Christians in general, will have no problem with smearing a substance seen by Western eyes as base and gross all over the mother of Christ."

The two religions views on graven images are not so clear cut either. Islam, like all of the world's great religions, is not homogeneous in the views of its believers. Similarly not all Muslims have the same views on images of Mohammed. Historic paintings from Persia, made by Muslim artists, clearly depict Mohammed in many different scenes (at his birth, the Night Journey, seated with his companions). Today, the vast majority of Sunnis (influenced in large part by the Wahabi sect) do hold to the belief that making an image of Mohammed is forbidden. They also hold that making the image of any living thing is forbidden. But, at the same time, Shia Muslims hold to a completely different interpretation. It would not be uncommon to find in a modern Shia home paintings of Mohammed, Ali, and Hussein (the latter two believed by Shia to be in some ways the successors of Mohammed--they both being related to the Prophet).

Likewise, Christianity's interpretation has not been and, because of a few small groups still in existence, is not completely unified. From the beginning some Christians understood the Second Commandment to forbid any image of God, or Jesus, or of any animate object. This view of graven images found a home in the time of the Reformation, especially amongst Clavinists (mainly seen in their opposition to the Catholic Icons of Saints and the image of Christ on the Crucifix but also extending to any image capable of obtaining praise). This incongruity among Christians may be seen in the differing translations of the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4):

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (King James Version)

and

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below" (New International Version).

Today some denominations and sects still hold to the first translation as the correct one. So to claim that Islam stands in a unique position as it comes to unflattering characterizations of its founding fathers (and in the case of Christianity its founding mothers) is simply untrue.

Finally, the reason this should be seen as so troubling is the importance of the principle of a free press in liberal society (by liberal I simply mean Western democratic societies). Without freedom of speech, slavery of the mind and subjugation of the people is certain. Once, in the distant history of America, a.k.a. the 19th Century, the Press understood this too. It was willing to stand up for this broader principle and to fight for its survival. (I literally mean fight, see this article). But, alas, today our media, much like our oh so principled establishment is too concerned with saving their lives and reputations to care for anything more permanent. All they have left is sentiment and that too is now in short supply.

Which leads to the real reason for the ineffectual coverage of this story; fear:

"[We won't publish the cartoons] out of fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do. This is, frankly, our primary reason for not publishing any of the images in question. Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history."

--- The Boston Pheonix So, I implore all those who support freedom of speech, to also support those rare journalists and editors brave enough to publish the whole story....cartoons included.